


The People

by SardonicShipper



Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Cersei POV, Gen, Sibling Incest, alcohol mention, my very first GoT fic, this is set between seasons 3 and 4
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-19
Updated: 2015-01-19
Packaged: 2018-03-08 05:51:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,083
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3197801
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SardonicShipper/pseuds/SardonicShipper
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>To celebrate the impending Joffrey/Margaery nuptials, the Lannisters and the Tyrells have a day out for the people. Cersei copes as best she can.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The People

Today was supposed to be a glorious occasion for the Lannisters. Jaime was home. Most of the wars were at a low ebb. Joffrey’s soon-to-be-bride was enormously popular with the people, who could spend the day celebrating the upcoming wedding. The people, according to Tyrion, needed a day of enjoyment.

"The people."

"The people."

Cersei was sure Olenna Tyrell spent every night and every morning mouthing the words into the mirror, smothering them in her craven little hands. 

Cersei had navigated backstabbers and sycophants since leaving the cradle, but the Tyrells were the phoniest and the falsest she’d ever had the misfortune to encounter. 

Margaery never lost the insufferable smirk that reminded Cersei of a cat Father had been inexplicably fond of. The cat had always looked at Cersei like it knew all of her secrets.

Cersei was sure that Father had avoided placing her near the Tyrell women on this endless pre-wedding “day of the people” because he knew she would be highly tempted to shove one of them off the nearest parapet. Instead, the usurpers were spending most of the day with the overly pampered wives, mothers, and spinsters of King’s Landing, opening their purses in exchange for florid and false tales of Highgarden and “exclusive” sketches of Margaery’s wedding dress.

Cersei was shackled to Sansa, Tyrion, and Loras for most of the day, waving to “the people” and waiting for first sign that they would throw fecal matter toward the royal carriage. That this had not happened only reinforced Cersei’s belief that said “people” were criminally dull, as she would have tolerated bodily waste on her least favorite dress in order to forever have the memory of the insufferable trio around her dodging rancid shit.

"The people" were there to pay taxes, line the streets for various occasions, and to look at the Lannisters and feel honored at a brief glimpse of what they would never be. They were going to suffer and die even if the entire Lannister family vanished into quicksand - at least they could say they had a little glamour in their dreary lives.

She used to share these thoughts with Jaime, whispering them, along with more colorful commentary, in his ear during these interminable public outings. He would throw his head back and laugh, and “the people” would feel proud at the idea that the gorgeous Jaime Lannister, not the slobbering pig of a king whose fat hands never left their wives and daughters, had been so entertained and honored by their presence.

Now her Jaime was gone, lost somewhere with all the beautiful golden hair which had been consumed by fleas. Now Jaime looked out on the crowds with, if not full sympathy, some hint of understanding. He’d even shaken a few of their hands. His extended jaunt with the thieves and savages of the world had tainted him, made him one of  _them_. He was a mockery of the man she knew, the man she loved, the man she should have been in a just world. And Cersei felt well and truly alone.

Cersei now had to settle for smirking when Loras the pretender tried to put a hand on her shoulder without vomiting.

"Little Dove," Cersei whispered, fatigued with the braided wall of silence seated next to her and hoping for some amusement, "would you like to sing a song to your adorers?" 

Sansa, stonefaced as ever, replied, “They would be unable to hear me over the roar of the crowd, your Grace.” 

Cersei laughed. “My dear Sansa, your voice travels far and wide.” 

Sansa fixed a soulless gaze on her, each word intoned with the stillness of death.

"Yes, your Grace. It does."

Cersei was relieved when Sansa looked away, all too aware that the glimmers of fire in Sansa’s eyes were built on the cinders of Winterfell. The awareness that Sansa would never forget her countrymen and family, no matter how she protested otherwise, allowed Cersei to have a shred of respect for her she could never muster up for the viperous Tyrells.

Tyrion was too busy sleeping off his hangover to offer much comment, but Cersei preferred him drunk and silent to sober and sanctimonious. 

As the forced merriment began to wind down, the Lannisters and their various spouses or spouses-to-be gathered on a balcony, waving at the assembled crowd. Cersei tried to plaster on a smile, imagining some of the delicious wine she had waiting for her when this day was finally done. Tywin, stationed next to Olenna, looked particularly miserable, miserable enough to prompt a sly grin between Cersei and Tyrion.

Joffrey, stood next to Tommen and Jaime, grinned at the crowd, so fickle in their affection, now approving of him, or pretending to approve of him, for scraps of food or gold coin. 

Joffrey’s smile, for a flicker of a moment, wasn’t imperious, or malicious. It was genuine. That of a boy, not a monster. Cersei couldn’t help wondering what he could have been, what he should have been. 

She caught her breath at the sight of the dying sun framing Tommen and Joffrey in their gold cloaks, Jaime in his polished armor, missing hand discreetly hidden behind his back. Only her beloved Myrcella was missing to complete the picture.  With his shorn hair, with the travails of the last year slightly weathering his angelic features, he had never looked more like the father of her children. 

What had once been an open secret had now become a widespread joke. Days like this all but flaunted the truth in the faces of the idiotic throngs below them. 

Cersei could not work up any flicker of shame. Only pride. No one had ever understood. She wouldn’t expect them to understand. Let them have their judgment and their pitiful ideas of right and wrong. They could use it to keep themselves warm at night.

Cersei walked over to her sons and to Jaime, amused at the faint frown from Margaery at the intrusion. She waved to the crowds, her efforts a little more genuine this time.

Jaime smiled at her, proudly and fondly; for a moment, so much like her Jaime. She remembered his lips against her neck, his hand on her waist, his golden hair brushed against her cheek. She remembered the happiness and serenity of his touch which had kept her going for most of her life, which would still keep her going as her Jaime increasingly faded to memory.

And, for a moment, she was happy. 


End file.
